[ALAC] Rules of Procedure - Draft for discussion at 26 March ALAC meeting

[Evan Leibovitch]

On 27 March 2013 14:33, Avri Doria <avri at acm.org> wrote:


> One of the things I know as an ALS member of 2 ALS, is we see precious
> little of ICANN.  If I was only an ALS member, I might not know ICANN
> existed to be interested in. (i would put this in the fact category)
>

You're right in that respect. The interface between ALS and everything else
above is currently 100% dependent upon the skill and inclination of each
ALS's ICANN rep to operate as a bi-directional conduit. Awareness on issues
flows down, opinions and direction flow up.

That is how it's supposed to work. But it doesn't, and many factors are at
play.

   - Limited volunteer cycles -- with all there is to ingest and process by
   ALS reps, how many have the ability, and the comfort level, to explain the
   issues to others?

   - The fact that ALS rep positions may themselves be based on political
   choices and not who is the best communicator

   - Limited staff resources -- so much is being expended in getting *some*
   kind of At-Large-centric view of ICANN issues that it is by necessarily
   focused on the top of the pyramid. Once upon a time each region had its own
   guardian staff member focused on ALS development-- Jacob Malthouse served
   Canada and the Caribbean -- but that was gone soon after the formal
   creation of the RALOs.


Greater suffrage will not fix this and is not a necessary pre-requisite of
what is needed. It will lead to uninformed, apathetic voices that will be
driven by resume-building rather than the kind of informed bottom-up
direction you want. Just look how people get so involved over elections in
the current systems in the same way that they DON'T get involved themselves
on issues. Either they really trust their reps, or they just can't be
bothered to be activist beyond punting the job to someone else. And there
is a steady supply of "someone else", though the willingness of would-be
leaders to serve once selected is ... erratic. Such is the reality that
flies in the face of the theory. I have often argued -- and still believe
-- is that an Executive Committee would be absolutely irrelevant if every
ALAC member was sharing enough of the workload.

What the current structure guarantees is at least a regional balance --
that no one region can go on a "membership"-signup spree in order to impose
its views on the rest of the world. As it is I am concerned that there are
commercial interests, TLD applicants and others in at large who could
easily game its processes were decision making just a body count. A
one-vote-per-ALS puts that important balance at substantial risk; the
political equivalence of the regions is a wise and important component core
concept of ICANN AT-Large, and the current Director voting preserves that
balance.

Having said this, Olivier is right that the At-Large infrastructure is
mature and self-confident enough that it is ready for (and badly in need
of) heightened attention on ALS improvement and empowerment. So where do we
start?

When I first got involved in ICANN -- early enough that the initial
requests were made of Nick, Heidi's predecessor -- my personal obsession
was for the production of a series of "ICANN Policy Briefs", a set of
documents that attempt to explain complex issues in simple language, while
adding the At-Large perspective. In the time since, quite a few of these
documents have been created and
translated<http://www.atlarge.icann.org/issues>.
How many ALS reps do you figure ever bother to distribute them amongst
their membership, even to provide a bare minimum of understanding of the
issues? Sure, many of the briefs are dated, but the core concepts are still
relevant (ie, it is necessary to know what WHOIS is before delving into the
accountability-versus-privacy debates).

These documents need a healthy refresh, after which they should be required
reading at very least, for each ALS rep and preferably distributed widely
within each ALS. Sometimes it's called outreach, sometimes it's called
capacity building, sometimes it's called something else. But we can't have
an effective At-Large without an informed at-large. And creating an
informed end-user community -- not giving everyone a vote -- is what the
ICANN bylaws mandate for ALAC.

My own first two priorities are

   - having a better informed At-Large, a pre-requisite to having a better
   engaged at-large

   - advocating harder that each RALO have a way to fully engage
   individuals who aren't part of ALSs.

Let's talk about changing voting systems, if necessary, after attacking
that.

- Evan